i appreciate the value that holds some of those myself, but i just wonder what your perception is, where it's going. and in the last thing is, why is it that liberals do not follow that same pattern of authoritarian? if you could just tell the irish who hasn't read the book. >> guest: let me give you a good source, that can give you a lot of answers on this. when i worked through bob's material, it was in its original academic form. and i had to have a copy of the dummies guide to statistics to get myself through all that material. when he realized i was a serious student of his work, he was very helpful. at one point i got to know him well enough, i said bob, why don't you take your material and make a sort of a layperson's addition of it.

and the fact that, you know, everybody can then understand that he did and he made it available for free. for short dr. bob rather than -- altmeyer's not a difficult name, but dr. bob will get you right there also, but you will get to his book. he lays an awful lot of the questions you raised out in that book. and i think that that's the fastest way to get you some simple answers to a complex question. >> host: this photograph during the senate watergate hearings. your wife, maureen, seated almost directly behind you. how did that come about? >> guest: well, she wasn't sure she wanted to go or not and attend them. my lawyer said, by all means. lawyer said by all means. i am curious to know what is going on and i can follow the proceedings that way but what

she didn't know was the camera spend some of much time on her. the camera man found a pretty ince and she doesn't take a bad picture. she was there and it was nice having her. >> she wrote her own book about watergate. hat did she learn from her research on the book? >> probably how hard it was on wa her, a difficult thing. she was not somebody who wanted to be a public person. we had been dated for a while. we had been married for a short - asod of time. she is a very private person today and as a result of being attacked has driven her to be almost invisible. she doesn't want to see anybody

or have any interaction with public law. washington type of fiction and other fiction, that ended when they drew her in as a watergate participant when she is a total noncombatant. that is it for me for public life. i want none of it. >> please go ahead. >> you may recall in an article tom wolfe wrote for playboy he said who could have imagined richard nixon would turn out to be richard nixon. might have enjoyed your insights

coming up on 40 years, there is an apocryphal story in may of 1970 we went to defcon one, there is nothing you can google on it. noll:who was bill clinton's secretary of defense, we miss the opportunity, i don't know. >> guest: there are certain thaities about sarah palin but that is still unfolding. ortacenterpiece of your question -- what was that? it was important what i was

nistra for last. >> caller: holding the otministration -- hold their feet to the fire. [talking over each other] >> guest: it is not happening. it is very troublesome. we are seeing that nobody is held accountable. a total rewriting. there won't be accountability for those actions. they pale in comparison to

nixon's activities. he did push the imperial presidency or used it for political purposes. i can't imagine nixon in his darkest moment permitting torture. i worked with him on the by the sules situation. we are talking others that get around the world as i do is just tremendously negative impact on this country and this image. it is a very serious war crime and violates -- obama has decided in looking forward and ut looking back, we have left a very serious future problem to

se dealt with. >> host: conservative republicans talk about checks and balances inherent in separation of powers. vet they're not good at employing them for they have allowed their constant reach for power to dictate conduct whether rs.or out of power. >> guest: exactly the point. they are good at winning elections. they have gone to the extreme. as i was rereading because i don't tend to read my books but i thought we should be familiar with them before we talk today. i was thinking and reading conservatives without conscience. that needs to be extended to explain because it flows into the tea party movement held the problems that are there that are

not recognized are brushed aside. i like to go where the mainstream tends not to go and the fact that we are not dealing with torture is deeply disquieting to me. >> host: one of your critics said this about worse than watergate. it could have been transcended some of the limitations as many have noted the anti. books are on the best-seller list. they tend to stoke yellow dog democrat anger without making any effort to persuade the undecided. dean could have written his book to appeal to folks outside the liberal choir. >> i read that review and scratched my head and said maybe he didn't read it as closely as i thought i had written it because that is part of the group by tried to reach and i try to reach with all my books being sort of a centrist myself,

it will appeal to the others. and didn't get it with his review. i tend to look at reviews only when i am writing my next book to see what reaction they are having. >> host: tom from nebraska. >> caller: thank you for the wonderful program. i asked mr. dean a question when he first spoke on his blind image. an honor to speak with him. a couple quick questions. what are your impressions? what are your thoughts about president nixon's efforts on health care and historian or history major irritates me when people discuss the chicago corruption of the election and we would have won the election if nixon had never seemed to pay attention. thank you very much for the

program. >> guest: sam ervin, it was a unique opportunity for him. he was a very colorful character. he was fair. he had the wisdom to hire a very careful set of hearings. they developed basically all the information that gave the big picture. he educated the public as to the events. the prosecutor's files are loaded with those documents as for the basis of where they started so he did all the ground work to uncover why it was happening. >> host: health care. [talking over each other] >> host: there was a moment in the nixon white house where we could have had health care.

>> guest: kennedy later said he wished he accepted nixon's deal when he offered it because we would have had health carry long time ago before the late senator passed away. that was a domestic policy area. i have incidental dealings with that. i am aware from some of the material that nixon who was very progressive in a lot of his policies -- >> host: china and the epa are two examples. >> guest: nixon was considered the last liberal president. >> host: filled joining us from baltimore with john dean. good afternoon. >> caller: i have a question. you did a lot of research about deep throat and the whole information he gavto bob woodward. i was wondering, it seems

apparent in your discussions with keefe doberman and others that the information was actually emanated from the white house. i was wondering, given more information given to woodworth, do you know who it might have been? >> guest: the information he gets from the white house is in november of 1973. the book you just saw there is one of several efforts to uncover deep throat. i don't know why i got fixated. it was a good mystery story in my book lost honor, it reads through the book and composes the entire last chapter where i said it could be potential -- i couldn't sort it out. i look at my methodology and there was nothing wrong with it.

the problem was the clues couldn't take you where you needed to go and jim mann, a former washington post reporter who came as close to anybody to that did so based on dealings with woodward on the lawless shooting. he was working with the white house and helped a lot. that helped man put together 2 plus 2 and put together what he thought was in the fbi and could well be felt. i wasn't his force in the white house. the part i was referring to on countdown was the fact that the last story is about the fact that one or more tapes have a potential erasure on nixon's secret tapes.

in the washington post story when you compare the two, all five sources in the washington post story are white house sources. when i thought about that since we now know it is felt, and gave to woodward. woodward doesn't know where he got this information. i felt with somebody in the white house. one or more of the tapes, they confirmed that. they would legitimately all be from the white house. what happened? when rose woods discovered she had erased what she thought was five minutes and later turned out to be 18-1/2 minutes i am sure she talked to her other friends in the white house and

there were people, they were in the basement, they were in the io be. some of them who do all of the clearance procedures for cabinet members and white house aides and do this sort of work. we are now dealing with potential erasure and a passing comment. bob woodward is an honest person. if there are mistakes, we gave those for his own reasons.

writing things up, a few minor mistakes. that could explain the bad information. last remaining question as far as the 18 minute gap, we may someday need computer technology to recreate the material and we will actually find out if there's anything of substance. nixon botching the machine or erasing something that was horrifying. >> host: where was your office? >> guest: i was in 106, the south corner. i look over the eclipse and the corner of the office looks over the south lawn. >> host: have you been back to the white house since then?

>> guest: always been the aggressor yesterday but not inside. because of the easter crowd and cherry blossoms to get from memorial bridge to my hotel. >> host: back to the william rehnquist choice. appointed by lyndon johnson, explain why he resigned. was he forced out? were there dirty tricks? >> guest: nitride to explain in the william rehnquist choice out nixon saw the potential to get appointees while he was still running for office. when earl warren announced he was departing clearly seeing earl warren not being somebody

who trusted richard nixon -- a very savvy guy thinking lyndon johnson could fill the chair while he was still there before nixon could win the election and get inaugurated. didn't happen. nixon passed the word through ehrlichman to bob griffin in the senate, filibuster. there had never been a filibuster by the republicans of a supreme court nominee when there were threats of a filibuster during the bush years or the other times it has come up when it starts with nixon. what johnson was going to do was put in the chief justice and associate justice chair and thornberry from texas into that share. he was putting two people on the

court because of the way the chairs were shuffling. >> host: this was 1968. >> guest: the heart of the campaign. the filibuster prevents florida from getting the chair. that kills thornberry. florida state seated. mitchell, one of the thing that comes up during the confirmation hearing on the tip from somebody from washington that there was outside income from teaching at an american university -- >> host: $15,000. >> guest: which was half of his salary as a justice. he had been making lots of money as a very successful washington practitioner and probably strapped. he has his wife -- he was gone.

she was working and anyway, to cut that story to the bone, what nixon picks up is there was somebody else that was supplying money. wilson is under indictment by the justice department. they make what i read as a bluff play to force fortis to retire and they do it by threatening a new grand jury where they will bring his wife and partner before the grand jury and caused them who knows what kind of havoc. it was an investigation that johnson's department of justice looked at settled. so mitchell is reopening it and it was clearly to me a ploy to force for this off the court. they were going to go after bill

douglas. when douglass learned that he dug-in and said that long as i live on will be on this court. rather than giving the opening. there was of that move and i am convinced he hadn't committed a crime. he didn't want the grief for his wife. to go back to private practice, and nixon got a seat as a result. >> host: welcome to the program. >> caller: happy easter. steve, you do a wonderful job both here and on washington journal. mr dean, i have read several of your books and enjoyed them very much. a quick story and a question. i am usually successful in striking up conversations but

six years ago a beautiful woman sat next to me obviously very wealthy and high was unable to get much of a conversation going. she was courteous but quite distant. i put that down later to the fact that i had a book on my lap which was worse than watergate. >> host: who was your seat mate? >> caller: she was a wealthy young woman from seattle. microsoft millionaire's wife or somebody like that. >> guest: those are my readers. >> caller: i don't sink she appreciated my book. and indicated guest. in any event i would like to know your opinion on bush versus for if you didn't discuss that in the first half-hour and thanks for a wonderful program. >> host: we haven't discussed it so thanks for bringing it up. >> guest: it was a travesty.

it is one of those decisions the court will rule for a long time. it was your judicial activism. it was the court reaching out to cut short the process that the founders certainly intended for the house of representatives to with golf, not the court. >> host: do you think al gore would have prevailed? >> guest: not necessarily but i am talking about the process. you never know what kind of deals can be made in the house. we have precedent for things being resolved by the people if you will rather than on elected judges. it was a disruption for a group of people who are original lists, this was their own creative original version of how to resolve a presidential

election. i am understand why they did it. they were afraid of the disruption that might have been caused by the delay in resolving it. how many opinions are precedent for nothing? >> host: chain from the midwestern states say i don't mean to-you feel old but i was in high school during the watergate hearings. she worked in state government for 23 years and said i am disillusioned with, quote, the dream unrealized of having a cadre of professional public servants that elevates the management and the analysis of the politico and campaign contributions influencing the process. >> guest: i was having dinner with friends last night with a local lawyer and we were talking about how the special interests have grown and i was saying they

have grown so potentially in the city. the money in the city was a nice restaurant and everyone was comfortable. this city is not recession-proof because it has all these special interests who are wining and dining people. >> host: it is recession-proof? >> guest: it largely is. it affected real-estate but if you run a good restaurant it will stay full because of the business of the city. it is something i witnessed. i was on capitol hill before i went to the white house. i was in the justice department dealing with the legislative program. the lobbyists didn't deal with me because there were not that many in those days so i watched this growth from a good distance but i watched it steady, i have

a number of friends who work in law firms that do lobbying. a former of member of congress friends who are delighted they got defeated because they are making seven figure salaries in this city and it is corrupting the system and as long as it happens this isn't the way our democracy was designed. we let the special interests take control. you can't get elected today if you don't have somebody bundling of the money for you and you are beholden to that person. you might say you are not but they are getting your office when they want to. it is something we have to address. >> guest: >> host: a number of years commenting on your appearance in ms nbc. if watergate happened today in the 24/7 cable environment would

things have been different? >> guest: there would have been a lot more of it. i don't know how old john is but watergate did get rather extensive coverage. when watergate first occurred when the watergate break-in occurred in 1972 on a saturday, late saturday night, it is a non story in the mainstream media until april of 73. the only paper covering it is the washington post and they are keeping a front-page story. they didn't crack the story but they kept the pressure on during the old period where judges are reading about it and prosecutors are reading about it and members of congress are reading about it. inside the beltway it is a story. i talked to george at length about this. he said i couldn't get two

reporters together in a room to talk about watergate. i told them about washington post. there was no national attention until we were sent packing from the white house and then the national media says there must be something here and at that point it starts becoming a story. at that point it starts becoming a headline every other day that would be enormous, shattering headlines. one copy in another and another. networks pick it up at that time and it becomes nightly news. it is not a two minute segment of 30 minute segment. it did get covered. i am not sure cable would have changed as much. i don't know. what would have been interesting, the president might have found a defender in fox news but he might have been too

liberal for fox news. >> host: how were you fired? >> guest: the president had asked me to resign on april 16th. he passed two letters across the desk. mr. president, the are asking me to confess to anything you put in these letters and he said take them and think about it. i said i am happy to leave any time under any circumstances. i just think you are not going to resolve this problem if haldeman and ehrlichman don't go too. i have listened to tapes of that period and they chuckle how the fact that they're not going to go. this is when i begin to realize i am being set up as a scapegoat and i released a statement. only talked to the press once when i was in office and my secretary called to make sure

the president -- and anybody else got that i didn't do the scapegoat role well and that was the best way to get the message to them. i happened to be in new york when he requested and accepted my resignation and declared haldeman and ehrlichman the finest public servants he ever had to accept the resignation of. it is interesting in writing his memoirs nixon says i am the only one who tried to warn him. he said haldeman never came in. he realized with hindsight that are tried to warn him. cancer on the presidency. really starting to get into watergate and i wanted to bring him up and make him know he had a problem.

>> host: steve from maryland. welcome to in depth on booktv. >> caller: mr dean, two questions. all of the millions of man hours and time spent on watergate there has never been an answer for who directly ordered the break in? everything i have read is he is very passive and wouldn't have done it by himself. the second is why bug chairman larry o'brien's office? i have never heard an explanation for that. >> i just added a new 30,000 word addition called the end of th storyo blind ambition where i was able to sift through the heart of it, not what people remembered or thought about what actually happened and what is

clear is nixon created a situation where the only person -- only place they could get what they wanted was in the dnc. jeff macgregor did give the order. >> host: dennis from bethpager new york. welcome to the program. >> caller: i hope i get some time because i wait 30 days as everybody should. i have an opinion of the tea party movements and progressivism, of mr. nixon. they are not tea party years. it is racist and one of the wings of the republican party. the republicland wing and the other wing of the party is the

gopranos. nixon had a democratic congress that was probably -- i wouldn't give mr. nixon that credit. as far as his health care plans i believe he was going to do what obama did as far as i am concerned. >> guest: on nixon's progressivism. on domestic policy what he did is turned it over to his key domestic advisers. just don't get me a arrested.

and actually aids. you can say the china initiative was not progress of. and pre nixon conservatives would dare never have done. >> host: what was the connection between hillary rodham and barry goldwater. >> host: >> guest: hillary rodham was a goldwater girl in 1964 and this was one of her first introductions to presidential politics. what i found interesting, i didn't put it in because the copyright returns to bill clinton. bill and hillary clinton became

close to barry goldwater in his retirement years. bill clinton and the president, they exchanged communications. hillary visits him in phoenix. bill clinton was one of the last people to see him when he is in the hospital. they liked him and he liked them. when hillary clinton was being attacked by conservatives, barry goldwater send a message to his colleagues to back off. and then send a message to some local people and one was campaigning for congress at the time who was attacking hillary.

the funny outcome of this is that the arizona republicans came out to see the senator and said listen, senator, what you are doing you have to stop. we built this big building downtown, the barry goldwater republican headquarters of arizona. you know what you are doing with the clintons and we are going to take your name off of that building and the senator said you keep doing what you are doing and i want you to take my name off the building. >> host: charles from illinois, welcomed to the program. >> caller: i would like to ask mr. dean to comment on family secrets by russell baker where he reiterates the charges in the lawsuit. copyright 2009 book that he is going to bring suit against him too. >> guest: mr. baker is someone i

hold in minimum high respect because he is not a terribly solid journalist so i will leave it at that. >> caller: this is a wonderful program. i have a specific question that has to do with the watergate tapes and specifically a moment to read the transcripts and i am asking mr. dean to flesh out this moment. and president nixon is on one side of the desk and the president twice said you don't realize if one person tells this story the whole thing could come down and mr. deane says yes, i

know that and the president reiterated this and mr. deane says again i am aware of that. or words to that effect. i am wondering in that moment of conversation whether you had the sense that he knew it was you or whether you knew and he didn't that it was going to be you. it is such a shakespearean dramatic moment and i will hang up. >> caller: >> guest: without listening to that segment it would be hard to give an accurate answer. you can actually listen to these tapes. it sounds like you are talking about the march 21st tape from the little bit that i picked up and if you go to www.hpowel.org

you can find tapes or other sources. that is a good one. >> host: bill from massachusetts, you are next. >> caller: can you hear me? >> host: we can. >> caller: in the january 1980 issue of poppel magazine, jim hogan wrote an article of expanded into a book called secret agenda. the essence of the argument was he sabotaged the break in operation. have you heard about book? >> guest: he is the godfather of the watergate revisionists. he operated fairly early when the story of watergate was quite familiar.

and therefore was not as dramatic in changing get but other revisionists who have followed have picked up where he left off. i explained in this new afterword how these revisionists accomplish their revisionism. if you are interested in that you can find it. as far as mccourt goes he is placing mcchord with a level of intelligence and cunning that i don't think mccourt ever had. it would have been impossible for him to do. 90% of what hogan is suggesting strikes me as highly improbable. if you want to understand what these revisionists are doing i tried to address that in the blind ambition. >> host: margaret from new jersey. >> caller: mr dean, you are one

of my heroes in american politics and it is a pleasure to speak with you. i recently read a book called the 40 year war is subtitle is the rise and fall from nixon to obama written by tom jackson. i don't know if you are familiar with it. >> guest: i have not read the book but i am familiar with the writers. they were defendants in my lawsuit. i find them in dubious in their authenticity. >> caller: i wondered about them because i had never come across them until i saw them on book notes one weekend and i delved into their book. my question really was the intrigue they describe -- >> guest: you have no idea.

this man has never seen two people together and they are deep into some national conspiracy. >> host: bob haldeman wrote a diary, almost daily diary that totaled 7,000 words. have you read that? what surprised you orçç what you learn? >> guest: because he was worried about the prosecutors getting that material he put it with the presidential papers and he was there. it was an obstruction of justice. he had a subpoena requesting a lot of that information that could have answered questions during watergate. it comes out long after the fact. his discipline is remarkable. he does it virtually from day one until his last day.

varying degrees of land. i think he did it after they put the taping system in. they needed a way to get back into this material and these little summary notes would be very helpful and it is revelatory. no one was ever short if john mitchell admitted to anybody authorized the watergate day camp. on march 28th to of 1973 admits it to me. he is trying to put pressure on me to lie. he is taking me into another office to have that conversation. the same day he it meets the same thing to bob haldeman who put it in his diary. little things like that, those of us who understand the implications of these material would pass the normal reader. there are lots of little nuggets like that in that book which

makes it important. >> host: you were appointed in 1970. september of 71, you are thinking of leaving. bob haldeman has a conversation with you but what happened? >> i had been thinking about it have a couple things were at play. i never asked barry goldwater to help me find a job. once i had taken a job at the house judiciary committee he said to me one night you have got to promise me you will start your way out of government and be out within your fifth year. i said why? he said i have seen too many guys come here, go to work, never leave, you have a lot of potential and have got to get out and i said done. i promise you that. my fifth year came up and something else came up.

71 is when the pentagon papers were leaked. those of us who had gotten together in the years since realized this was when everything changes at the nixon white house. it goes out, it is not a pleasant place to work. nixon's mood changes. everybody's mood changes. after taking a brief vacation i came back and said it is time to leave. i went to see bob haldeman. i stopped in new york. had some inquiry. had some very nice job offers. one was a short-term assistant or deputy general counsel and be boosted up to general counsel. worldwide shipping line and the other was a wall street job, investment banker that intrigued me very much.

something different -- i explained that. he said you owe it to us to stay. you levy will burn your bridges and you need to keep that bridge open. after is over you will get better offers. might be making license plates somewhere. in essence he said you can't leave or you will hurt yourself if you do. years later i suspect he would wish he let me go. are told the senator i was not going to spend a long time in government and the fact that i have not like to the mood and the change and nature. right after i had flown out in july to turn off the bookings break in. jack shows up in my office one day and he says he has been

ordered to break in and firebomb the brookings institute. i said that is insane. i said don't do anything. i got ehrlichman to turn it off and came back. he says a lot of people think you are a little old lady around here. a can't even tell you what they asked me to do. i knew it was time to leave. >> host: did you ever apologize to barry goldwater about being caught up in watergate? >> guest: it was never appropriate to apologize. he always said to me and i recounted it in something that after watergate he and i are out with his son and his wife and my wife and barry jr. and his wife on his boat out of newport and he is saying we are at the helm and barry jr. was there also, i

am pretty aware of what happened and you are the only person that deserves to come out smelling like a rose. you did the right thing. i know you didn't want to blow the whistle. what few appreciate is i had a plan that a fire broke rank others could do so. they tell the truth and this could potentially save nixon. nothing short of that was likely to save him. you couldn't get up with a half truth. it needed to be laid out. i am convinced to this day that is the only answer. had they done it sooner rather than later, he might have survived. >> good morning. i got a couple things to ask

you. the supreme court has ruled stations with lack of -- bay told us the georgia started that war, and also watch several other news channels. and straight up. [talking over each other] who said we needed the hearing they have. it is not that, these people are representing us, they are representing and tried to tell

us things, they need it most. >> guest: one of the saddest things that happened lately. it was so troubling i had to address it head on. it was intellectual dishonesty. it is happening too often. i saw it with the watergate revisionism. it was -- and writing broken government. that shows people the sorts of activities by people who know better.

this is a very intelligent man at the u.s. court of appeals, and clarence thomas with the council of the house or senate judiciary committee is a berkeley professor. very prolific writer and he is distorting information in a very dishonest way. to do that and to do it for political purposes is very dangerous. the authoritarian conservative republican gets off this because -- >> the parallels between the teapot scandal and watergate. what were they? >> guest: the first time we have

a special prosecutor. your mention of teapot dome and parting with the fact that warren harding has nothing to do with it. he has been tagged when it happens after it is totally away from him and the one tiny learns it he deals with the aggressively but yet he bears the burden of teapot dome. >> host: he died before he can defend himself. >> guest: but teapot dome is a cure corruption scandal and the only parallel -- the strongest parallel is the use of the special prosecutor. a selected two by the department of justice and i have read a memo by the watergate prosecutors drawing on many of the precedents established under teapot dome. it shows we have a remedy less

than an independent counsel law that can be used or set up and sometimes should. i am one who doesn't understand why we are not dealing with torture that way. these are very serious crimes. they are war crimes and they won't go away. there are foreign government investigating seven former bush officials and if we don't do so, they won't travel abroad but certainly they could be theoretically tried in absentia. >> host: how will history judge george w. bush? >> guest: nixon's famous line it depends on the historian who writes the history. collectively i think he is in for trouble.

he gave too much power in the first six years of his presidency to his vice president. his vice president had an agenda to overturned anything that was the result of watergate. these very aggressive actions in the name of fighting terrorism went way over the top. keeping americans frightened to get the mandate to do so are troubling historical potentials. they have never been accountable for many of the activities they undertook. the fact of that we went to war in iraq on really a bogus reason, those need to be addressed and will be addressed and i don't think history is going to be real good to either bush or cheney. >> host: airmass call is from

texas. >> caller: you are doing a good job. i met you in alfred university. you wore a hockey uniform or something. i was superintendent of schools in the area and i and sat among 500 people and most of them wanted to hate you because of what you did to president nixon. they perceive it that way. i am not accusing you. i have two questions. how could you remain so calm? that was the biggest impression i had a view that night. you seemed so serene and i thought this man has been through hell and look at what he is doing. he is doing a very calm presentation. i don't know how you did that. >> guest: the truth does set you free. >> caller: the other question i

want you to elaborate on is give me a personal review of the most fascinating person of the nixon administration and that is john ehrlichman. what was he really like as far as you are concerned? >> guest: he was very bright. he was a real-estate lawyer who came into the administration because he had been in the advance operation. it was a classmate of bob haldeman bigger kettle chief of staff. he was very bright. he loved domestic policy. that is where he moved from the council's chair to become assistant to the president for domestic affairs and did a remarkably good job. he was very progressive in his

policies. he had a reservoir of ill will from which to draw from. he made some serious mistakes. he thought he could earn a break in to the psychiatrist because the president wanted it without explicit directions from the president to do so and go to jail for that. he got involved in the watergate coverup because he ordered the break-in. the cover-up of watergate was largely the cover-up of what had happened before their friends had gone to the reelection committee and they are being protected for what they have done from the nixon white house. >> host: one moment is captured from the original interviews and that is when david frost said to

richard nixon why don't you apologize to the american people? he never did say why. >> guest: he never thought he had done anything wrong. based on the few people who had informal, relaxed -- he thought he hadn't done anything wrong. and i made mistakes type comments. they were mistakes not of the head but of the heart. he made justifications and rationalization and and that is why he never dealt with me. >> host: i hope he apologized to his family. the republicans controlled this town and house and senate, the

house never would have had it. >> guest: no question it was political. there were some perfunctory actions that might not even -- where the u.s. attorney might have taken things. one of my thoughts is it will be handled in a grand jury, i didn't look to shoot down nixon. it resulted in a i got lucky if you will otherwise it could have been different but had congress not put the pressure on nixon would have done all eight years. >> host: what is your next book?